GING UP IN AMERICA
ging Up in America Shades are Offered to Reactionaries, Have You? It May Be a Joke, Very Funny m not work betg of go vex n merit fuarsntce profit* li then will come of the owning lueitlm...
...He publishes a magazine, the Awakener, under the slogan "Against Socialism of the Left...
...But at a public meeting in New York one of Smith's men killed a man...
...But what wc arc emphasizing is that a Socialist movement that keeps in mind the fight for Socialism as an "immediate objective" must also be a part of the struggle of worker* to wrest concessions from the exploiters and that when 'uch concessions are won they do not mean winning the "immediate objective" of Socialism...
...if an injunction ia issued against strikers we are with them in the struggle against it...
...The spirit which gave rise to the Klan is a spirit which could easily develop into fascism...
...of the Methodist Episcopal Church declares employees should have, we petition our representatives in the Congress of the United States to enact legislation which will make it illegal for a corporation or company to intimidate, coerce, or unfairly influence their employees in any way to join a nemphryer initiated, financed, or controlled organization dealing with wages hours, and grievances relating to conditions of work...
...the New Deal, called for a rapid extension of social ownership and democratic control of natural resources and the principal means of production and distribution, exclusive o fagricultirre...
...But does a declaration in favor of Socialism as oar "immediate objective" tell us anything about the important factor of achieving power to realize it...
...The same is true of others who followed them and died...
...Five years later the Appeal translated it into support of the war...
...Where is the Socialist who doesn't...
...Editor's Corner Review of and Comment on Events Here and Abroad, Critical and Otherwise •By James Oneal—"Bleated Word...
...olical, sadistic cam practice in rticularly when, !««e, the victims r habitual dis>t Negroes in s ia justice, are iter than those practice in the nic- tribal state, over, a love for 't action...
...He has written extensively for the American Magazine, and published three fairly successful novels...
...later he proposed to install Roosevelt as dictator...
...With headquarters in Philadelphia, and led ty "General" Art Smith, it appealed for members to make a march on Washington and install a dictator...
...That is more definite than the words "our time...
...That slogan at least had the merit of being definite, whatever the anti-climax may have been...
...At first, Smith was going to tak...
...We can work like galley slaves for the "immediate objective," and we should, but power remains the basic problem...
...Shall we support these issues that do not correlate with our "immediate objective...
...Its program is vague, consisting chiefly of opposition to the Jews and denunciations of racketeering and politics...
...Not to "immediately" struggle for its realization, if conditions are ripe for its realization, is to throw away an opportunity...
...Every barricade mounted by workers in the forties, every street meeting hold and lecture delivered, every leaflet and book and paper published, hari' been activities directed lo the realization of "Socialism in Our Time...
...In a few localities the Legion has been active against Socialists, Communists and labor union organizers, interfering with meetings and even, in a few cases, heating up radicals and driving them out...
...This, of course, is merely memoership bait, but the fact that iU has some effect shows that a fascist movement would find some support among Americans...
...A Socialized World Aim of Methodists V _ The New York East Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at lis Annual Session in the Central Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, on Monday, May Mtrr...
...The Khaki Shirts were funny, but that they found gome support is indicated by the fact that there was about $30,000 in their treasury when the thing was broken up...
...adopted the Report of its Social Service Committee which, after analyzing the inadequacy of...
...The fact is that our immediate and ultimate aim ii Socialism, but while wc fight for it there are other issues vital to the working class which we must support and if won do not mean the realization of the "immediate objective...
...lements which are leaning strongly in the direction of fascism...
...The most important feature of his activities seems to have been a shirt-selling racket...
...Art Smith is now serving a jail term for perjury in the ease, as is his lieutenant Frank Moffer, confessed slayer of Fierro...
...Our ingsterism, our jently testify to •genuineness of Kraey are open it is fashionable Wain cynicism often a very ormrt type of ill the** elements iemitogue could unerican fascist 1 •tie' that the We than AmerNRA is not "tion, and the iof dictatorship lLainit President ¦credit him with I Iflaiolini and ¦*A it an organP*o»t exclusively run for the IJW NRA ha* apeed up the trend toward monopoly and to squeeze out the small business man...
...All are conservative and anti-labor...
...He is conservative, hates the Jews and all radicals, is very nationalistic...
...Dennis was formerly a member of the big banking company, Seligman and Company...
...They have headquarters in Asheville, N. C; Washington, D. C, and Oklahoma City, and also have some strength in California...
...It May Be a Joke, Very Funny m not work betg of go vex n merit fuarsntce profit* li then will come of the owning lueitlm which it iy an appeal to idice.' Plenty of iiuhL tion Instinctively th»n the United 10 aation where nd more violent rejttdiee...
...Several of the Khaki Shirt leaders arc now in jail...
...in the day-by-day struggle of the working class for relief, against injustice and oppression, we arc with our class in its fight against reduction to degradation...
...It likewise adopted the following resolution as a part of its report: "Whereas in recent months there has been a rapid growth in employer dominated company unions and these unions have become a serious menace to the rights of the workers to organize into independent unions and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, rights which the Social Crew...
...In fact we do...
...ABOUT THIS MAN LAWRENCE DENNIS Lawrence Dennis, formerly in the U. S. Diplomatic Service, and author of "Is Capitalism Doomed...
...Are we not taking refuge in "blessed words" by affirming an objective that is always before us and thus assuming that the problem of power is simply a matter of willing it...
...However, there arc those who use the slogan in the following sense...
...the job...
...Many of these are small local organizations, and some are doubtless merely racketeering schemes, but some of them are growing rapidly...
...The warning of Bax against "blessed words" li as good today as when he wrote his essay...
...The public took this as a funny piece of comic opera (and it was...
...The Crusaders were organized originally to fight for repeal of the eighteenth amendment...
...We* will if we are good Socialists...
...It was started in New York a few months ago, and appears to be rather small...
...The NRA and the various industrial codes under it constitute a huge machine dominated by the bigger capitalists which can easily be used for the complete regimentation of American industry...
...That also implies that he works for something, makes sacrifices for it, but wants its realization when he cannot enjoy it...
...Read the biographical sketch of him, "Crazy Like a Fox," in the New Republic, April 13, 1934...
...In a word, he is a man with wide business experiences, some intelligence, an extremely conservative attitude, and a gift for demagogy...
...Because even though these struggles do not bring realization of our "immediate objective" they constitute the experience, training and struggle that are assential to realize our fundamental aim whether that aim is accomplished in "our time" or after we who participate in it have passed on...
...Marx and Kngels wanted it in their time and did not get it...
...In its appeal, its propaganda, its activities and in the background of its leaders, the Silver Legion is strikingly similar to the German Nazi movement in its early days...
...The publication Liberation has just collapsed...
...He is well versed in propaganda technique and advertising methods, knows a good deal about mass psychology...
...Since repeal, they are adopting a program demanding inflation and a return to "liberty," by which they mean the liberty of a capitalist to make as much money as he pleases by any means expedient...
...Immediate within endless time menu* now...
...The implication is that somebody else wants Socialism after his death...
...Between 1924 and 1929 he was in California writing movie scenarios...
...Our Two-Fold Aim* IF the right of free assembly is stricken down we fight * for its restoration...
...A part of his twaddle and nonsense he uses is spiritualism, written up with just enough plausibility to take in considerable numbers of the more ignorant people...
...I want Socialism today if I can get it...
...iSome are allied with business...
...The White Shirts, the militant branch of the Crusaders, are issuing instructions for preparations for a march on Washington by a well-disciplined body, capturing local governments as they go...
...Socialism in Our Time" is a good slogan but we have observed it used in the sense that Bax criticised...
...Hitler ble to teach the practice toward ter group such...
...AH his contacts and interests have been with business men...
...For u while he ran an advertising agency, all of them quite profitable ventures...
...FASCIST ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES During the last year or so a considerable number of organizations have sprung up, some of them openly and avowedly fascist, and others with program and propaganda that are very close to fascism...
...The American Legion contain...
...Gercral" Smith had political pull enough to place the blame on Athos Terzani, who was very nearly railroaded through...
...The Order of '76, unlike the other fascist bodies, works under cover and keeps very quiet about its activities...
...It h conservative, very nationalistic and militaristic, and much inclined to side with big business...
...Mussolini and Dollfuss, and Hitler to some extent, had to create political machinery for aiding monopoly capital...
...It is today and tomorrow, next week and next month, this year and next year...
...Another form of this idea is that we must fight for Socialism as "an immediate objective...
...They put out a weekly paper, Liberation, which is a typical fascist hash of antiSemitism, anti-Communism . (by Communist they mean everybody more liberal than a Vare Republican), demands for a bigger navy, attacks on government officials, demands for a return to "Constitutionalism" and articles on the superiority of the "Nordics," all seasoned with spiritualistic hocuspocus and quotations from the Bible...
...The I>egion, headed by Pelley, iR openly appealing for financial support from the business interests to "return the country to constitutionalism...
...Its "100% patriotism," antiradicalism, opposition to Catholics and Negroes and general bigotry would fit nicely into a fascist program...
...He had edited various newspapers in Massachusetts and Vermont...
...William Dudley Pelley, head of the "Silver Legion," has had a varied career...
...jyjOKK than three decades ago Ernest Belfort Bax, the British Marxist, wrote an essay protesting against the use of what he called "blessed words...
...Therefore, the only meaning.that "Sociali*si in Our Time" can have for each of us is that we want to realize it before we die...
...By this he meant the use of language that does not convey any precise meaning...
...General" Smith escaped through a window, carrying the army's treasury with him...
...The meeting I address, the leaflet I distribute and the pamphlet and paper I sell are activities to realize Socialism in my time but your activities are not for this same aim...
...THE SILVER LEGION MOST MENACING The Silver Legion is the largest and most rapidly growing of all the American fascist organizations...
...Used as "hie/turd words" it obscures thought...
...These have displayed no concern over social issues, but they should probably be active in any really serious fascist movement...
...has recently come out as an avowed fascist...
...Now, time is endless hut for us it is limited to our span of life...
...The Khaki Shirts grew out of the bonus army...
...The Ku Klux Klan in some parts of the country is becoming active again...
...Organized in January, 1933, it is now estimated by outsiders to have 75,000 members...
...No one can possibly object to an "Immediate" struggle for the realization of Socialism...
...That slogan was "Socialism in 1912...
...One student, Harold Loeb, says that there are over 100 fascist organizations in the United States at this time...
...If I cannot get it now I will work for its realization tomorrow or next year or as soon thereafter as the masses can be won to support it...
...To be sure, a Socialist movement may turn to the support of issues that do not correlate either with the present interests of the working class or our basic aim and where this occurs it is necessary to bring the movement hack to its fundamental objectives...
...What is "our time...
...The organization is financed by a few wealthy men...
...One of their activities is the Silver Legion Ranger organization, organized on a semi-military basis frankly for the purpose of combatting "the Communistic adversary...
...The important point is that these bodies indicate the existence on a rattler wide scale of a spirit, a frame of mind, that might easily develop into support for a fascist program...
...Gangs and racketers of our big cities arc not least important among fascist possibilities...
...But if an American fascist movement should become powerful, it would rind machinery all ready...
...The "Immediate Objective" •THE only' instance we can recall that any group waa * consistent enough to define "our time" as a definite period included those who accepted the Appeal to Reason slogan about 1900...
...On October 12, 1933, the day before the "march" was to take place, the Philadelphia police invaded the headquarters...
Vol. 17 • May 1934 • No. 62
